Happy 18 Months Birthday, Cody!

This week, Cody turned 1 ½! It’s hard to believe he’s already halfway through his second year. He’s becoming more and more of a “big boy” and less of a baby every day. It’s sad, but also exciting!

Here are some of his impressive accomplishments for the past three months:

He can point out almost 20 different body parts on himself and others when asked.

He can identify himself and others by pointing. (Where’s Cody? Where’s grandma? Etc.)

He can sign “all done,” “again,” “more,” “eat,” and “down,” along with his old signs “dada,” “milk,” and “ball.”

He finally signed “dada” while saying “dada” instead of saying “mama.”

He can follow simple instructions such as “close/open that,” “put that back/down,” “go around,” “don’t touch,” and “go get that.”

He cooperates and helps us with things like getting him dressed, getting him in his carseat, and putting his shoes on.

He sometimes helps clean up his toys.

He tries to play peek-a-boo with his hands and behind curtains or doors.

He is starting to try to use a spoon.

He takes our hand to lead us places.

He gives high-fives, low-fives, and waves bye-bye.

He makes “mmm” noises when he eats a food he likes.

He tries to tickle himself and others.

He imitates “gentle touch” when we use his hand to show him (especially when petting the dogs).

He imitates a lot of the things we do, such as vacuuming, brushing Sky, and cleaning.

He is good at sharing usually. *I hope to explain more about what sharing means for us later.

He tells us sometimes when he goes potty, and likes to practice sitting on his potty chair.

He has peed once and pooped once in his potty chair!

 

Some of Cody’s silly antics lately:

He likes to act goofy and try to make us laugh.

He loves to snuggle and “wrestle” on the couch and bed.

He loves running around the house, playing with the dogs, and exploring outside.

He enjoys bike rides. (He rides in a seat on dad’s bike.)

He prances, basically runs, walks backward, and spins in circles.

He loves to be chased.

He absolutely loves when he has both mine and Cory’s full attention and when we give him kisses and snuggles.

He loves piggy back rides and shoulder rides, and will try to climb on when he wants one.

He sometimes giggles and makes sounds in his sleep.

 

Some of Cody’s challenging behaviors:

He still has clingy days, where he wants to be held A LOT.

He sometimes tests limits and ignores our commands – he’s a toddler after all. 😉

He whines a lot. WORST NOISE EVER.

He can be very aggressive with me and Cory and the dogs.

He can be very demanding about nursing at times.

Physically, Cody’s growth has slowed down a lot, which is fairly normal for this age. I suspect that he’s growing into his body type, which will likely be slender since Cory and I are both slender. His weight at his 18 month checkup was 21 pounds and 10 ounces, and his height was 2’8”. That means he gained only four ounces in the past three months, and he grew just over an inch. He is now in the 16th percentile for weight, 31st percentile for height, and his head is slightly more proportional in the 91st percentile now. Cody has almost all of his teeth, but he’s still working on those second molars. He had a hard week of teething last week, but they haven’t quite come through yet.

Cody is eating a little bit more, but nowhere near a complete diet of food. We offer him bits of whatever we’re eating, but he mostly only eats breads, pastas, cereals, yogurt, cheese, and sweets. He did willingly eat his first vegetable recently, and he fed himself a piece of fruit, too. Generally though, we have to feed him or he will play with and throw his food and not eat any at all. He’s still nursing of course, and the majority of his nutrition comes from my milk.

He’s been sleeping perhaps slightly better during naps and bedtime. He goes down fairly easily for both. Occasionally, he’ll mix things up by skipping his nap altogether or taking it several hours off schedule. Typically, though, he takes his 1 ½ to 3 hour nap around noon. We are pretty consistent about his bedtime being 8:30, which is the time he should be in bed and sleeping. For his naps, I nurse him to sleep most days, or he falls asleep in the car on the way home from our morning activity. For bedtime, I nurse him and then dad rocks him to sleep. At night, he tends to wake up 3-4 times total which at this point is no big deal for me. Being that he sleeps in our bed and nurses back to sleep, the wakings aren’t too disruptive and I feel like I get a good nights’ sleep usually.

Cody is wearing 18 month size clothes, and isn’t ready to move up quite yet, except for his 24 month size plain white onesies which we use as pajamas. He wears “big boy” shoes now with solid bottoms, rather than the flexible shoes he used to wear, and he’s wearing a size 6. We’ve been using cloth diapers less and disposable diapers more now that he needs much less frequent changes and we’re out and about so much more. He wears a size 4 diaper, and I don’t see him going up a size for a very long time, if ever. We will probably potty train him before that.

On the topic of potty training, some people are surprised when they see his potty chair or hear me talking about him using the potty at this age. Typically, potty training doesn’t start until 2 years old or sometimes later. However, what we’re doing isn’t really “potty training” so much as it is simply getting him used to the idea of using the potty and recognizing his bodily processes. We actually call it “potty learning,” and we’ve been very casual about it thus far. Sometimes, between diaper changes or when we’re just hanging out around the house, we let him go diaper-free and encourage him to sit on the potty if he wants to. We’re going to continue doing this for a while and see where it takes us. We’re not in any hurry to potty train Cody before he’s ready—we’re just encouraging him and introducing him to the idea, since he’s shown interest in learning.

That’s about it! He’s adorable as ever, and dare I say things are getting somewhat easier. Or, maybe I’ve just become acclimated to the challenge—sort of like a callus develops over time as a result of agitation. Cody’s certainly given me plenty of agitation, so I must be a callus by now. 😉 As in most cases, I think this “callus” is definitely worth it.

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